


Quiet and Respectable

by radondoran



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Adventures of Tintin (2011), Tintin - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Minor Character, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:10:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radondoran/pseuds/radondoran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs. Hudson has a few words on the subject of troublesome tenants.  Mrs. Finch is determined not to fall into the same trap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet and Respectable

**Author's Note:**

> "Mrs. Finch! A man's been shot on our doorstep!"
> 
> "Not again!"
> 
> \- _The Adventures of Tintin_ (2011)

The Sherlock Holmes stories of Dr. Watson are all well and good, but if you want my opinion, the very best Sherlock Holmes stories are the ones my great-aunt Martha used to tell me when I was younger. Aunt Martha had a unique sort of perspective, you know, and so her stories always had a personal touch--maybe there was no "Adventure of the Naval Treaty" or anything so grand, but there was the story of The Time Mr. Holmes Shot Up The Walls With His Revolver, and The Time Mr. Holmes Left A Human Head In The Middle Of The Sitting-Room, not to mention All The Times Someone Tried To Burn Down The Place; and the fire still came into the dear old lady's eyes when she told about The Time Mr. Holmes Gave Me And Poor Doctor Watson Such A Dreadful Fright.

I loved Aunt Martha's stories about the domestic life of Sherlock Holmes, his eccentricities, his comings and goings, his disguises, the unsavory characters he attracted--it was all so exciting, but I had to admit it did sound rather inconvenient for his landlady. After all, she told me so herself.

"Let me give you some advice," she said to me one afternoon over her cup of tea. "If I were you, and I found myself taking in lodgers, I should like to have someone more ordinary. None of these great celebrity detectives--too much trouble by far, they are. No, you're better off with a nice, quiet sort who keeps things tidy and pays the rent on schedule. In those twenty-one years I spent many a night wishing I'd never let that flat to Sherlock Holmes."

Well, I took her words to heart, and when, years later, I had myself a couple of flats to let, I did exactly as she said. I interviewed applicant after applicant, looking for somebody nice and ordinary, somebody who would keep the place quiet and respectable. And then, wouldn't you know, I found somebody who fit my highest hopes in every particular.

From the moment this young man walked into my office I liked him. Well-dressed, he was, in a brown tweed jacket and plus fours, good necktie, quality shoes, the works. His hair was what you might call a little disordered in front, but neatly cropped along the back and sides. He had with him a little white dog--I've always liked dogs, and this one was a perfectly adorable animal. Smart, too, I thought, from the way he trotted along obediently by his master's side.

"Hullo," said the young man. "My name is Tintin. I'm here about the flat." He spoke remarkably clearly, in a voice as youthful as his face.

I invited him to sit, and the little dog sat down quietly beside his chair.

"Will it be just you looking to live here, then?" said I.

"That's right, ma'am," said he. "It's just me and Snowy. Say how-do-you-do, Snowy."

Snowy--what a charming name! I liked this fellow more and more--barked, and I could have sworn the pooch really was saying hello.

And my first favorable impression of Mr. Tintin was confirmed by everything he told me during our interview. For instance, when I asked his profession:

"I'm a reporter," said he, "for the _Petit Vingtième_."

"Why, that's a children's paper, isn't it?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am," said he, with a bit of a self-conscious smile.

"Lovely." Children's writing--now there was a nice, safe line of work.

"As a matter of fact, I'm an international correspondent--a lot of the time, I won't even be here. I'm chiefly looking for somewhere to serve me as a home base between assignments, you understand."

Clean-cut, mild-mannered, dog owner, children's writer... And he wouldn't even be living in the flat half the time! You can't beat that for peace and quiet. As I shook his hand to seal the deal, I knew I'd managed to find the very tip-top of tenants--somebody who would be no trouble at all.

Well, I guess you know how that turned out. But there was something else my Aunt Martha told me that day about her famous lodger.

"All the same," said she, after a thoughtful sip, "there always was something about Mr. Holmes. I'm not sure I wouldn't go through it all again. I could have asked him to leave, but I never did. He was a _good_ man, you know. Kind to me, he was. And his payments weren't half bad either. Besides--" she leaned closer and lowered her voice, laughing a little--"it was a bit exciting, knowing I was connected to those great adventures of his."

I'll warrant that's about how I feel. Maybe I ought to resent it all more--Mr. Tintin may not leave cigars in the butter-dish, but he doesn't have to go about sticking his nose into everything, provoking assassins right and left, practically sending out engraved invitations to have rocks thrown through my windows and armed thugs banging down my doors.

But it's like Aunt Martha said. He really is remarkable. It makes me kind of proud, knowing all the things he's done since he came to live here. Besides which I like him, just as I did at first. He's a dear young man, even if he is a perfect magnet for trouble.

And so when, after one brush-up or another, he looks up from the latest police investigation of my front hall and says, yet again, "Sorry about all the bother, Mrs. Finch," I can't find it in my heart to be upset with him.

"Oh, it's no bother, Mr. Tintin," says I. "Now just you go on and get back up to bed."

"No, I'm going out," says he, invariably. "I've got to follow up this lead while it's still hot! Come along, Snowy!"

And off he goes again, while I stay behind to deal with the policemen and the cleaners and the glaziers and so on. I probably won't see him again for weeks. In all likelihood he'll show up here in the dead of night with an army of pirates at his heels, or in a box or something. (Oh, no, I don't mean dead--it's just that a couple of times he's been kidnapped by fellows who put him into an actual box.) You can never tell what kind of trouble that young man is going to bring back next.

I expect that someday, it'll make a good story.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [abcooper](http://archiveofourown.org/users/abcooper), who suggested that Mrs. Finch and Mrs. Hudson should hang out.
> 
> I've taken "Martha Hudson" from Bert Coules's radio dramatizations.


End file.
